Category: Medical school

Third year of medical school is like learning to ride a bike

I could see the excitement on my six-year-old daughter’s face as we pulled into the parking lot and unloaded her new bike from the car. She had been anxiously awaiting this moment for several weeks — she was going to learn to ride a bicycle. She watched with increasing interest as I unscrewed the training […]

What’s better: mentorship or sponsorship?

Literature coming from business and human resource management suggests that women are over-mentored and unders-ponsored. However, if you have been reading reports about women in medicine, then you likely have heard that women are both over-mentored and under-mentored. Where does the truth lie? That depends on various factors including the definitions of these terms. What […]

8 things I would tell my younger self

Young, aspiring doctors are the Iron Youth of this generation. In Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, young German soldiers are called the Iron Youth as part of a campaign to generate enthusiasm for fighting in the war; these soldiers soon realize the true horrors of war and its lasting impact on […]

Don’t worry, medical students don’t judge

Everybody gets nervous at the doctor’s office. Physicians ask all sorts of personal questions about what people eat, how much they drink, and how things are at home. Even questions that would seem completely harmless in another context — such as how work is going, or what hobbies a person enjoys — seem surrounded by […]

The choice between medicine and nursing

An excerpt from The Choice: Medicine vs. Nursing. An extensive amount of data now exists in the science of choice.  Social researchers such as David Kahneman and Dan Ariely have conducted numerous experiments which suggest a number of ways in which humans are led astray when making choices.  An understanding some of these pitfalls is critical […]

Advice for first-year medical students

A few days ago I received a message: “Any advice for incoming med students?” As an old, wise, seasoned, now-second year medical student, I know everything. Just kidding — I fumbled my way through first year like everyone else, and just like you will too. No piece of advice allows you to opt out from the […]

Advice for first-year medical students

A few days ago I received a message: “Any advice for incoming med students?” As an old, wise, seasoned, now-second year medical student, I know everything. Just kidding — I fumbled my way through first year like everyone else, and just like you will too. No piece of advice allows you to opt out from the […]